The Unholy Alliance

by Dr Mae-Wan Ho

Genetic engineering biotechnology is inherently hazardous. It could
lead to disasters far worse than those caused by accidents to nuclear installations.
In the words of the author, "genes can replicate indefinitely, spread and
recombine." For this reason the release of a genetically engineered micro-organism
that is lethal to humans could well spell the end of humanity. Unfortunately
the proponents of this terrifying technology share a genetic determinist
mindset that leads them to reject the inherently dangerous nature of their
work. What is particularly worrying at first sight is the irresistible
power of the large corporations which are pushing this technology.

Suddenly, the brave new world dawns.
Suddenly, as 1997 begins and the millennium is drawing to a close,
men and women in the street are waking up to the realization that genetic
engineering biotechnology is taking over every aspect of their daily lives.
They are caught unprepared for the avalanche of products arriving, or soon
to arrive, in their supermarkets: rapeseed oil, soybean, maize, sugar beet,
squash, cucumber ... It started as a mere trickle less than three years
ago - the BST-milk from cows fed genetically engineered bovine growth hormone
to boost milk yield, and the tomato genetically engineered to prolong shelf-life.
They had provoked so much debate and opposition; as did indeed, the genetic
screening tests for an increasing number of diseases. Surely, we wouldn't,
and shouldn't, be rushed headlong into the brave new world.

Back then, in order to quell our anxiety, a series of highly publicized
"consensus conferences" and "public consultations" were carried out. Committees
were set up by many European governments to consider the risks and the
ethics, and the debates continued. The public were, however, only dimly
aware of critics who deplored "tampering with nature" and "scrambling the
genetic code of species" by introducing human genes into animals, and animal
genes into vegetables. Warnings of unexpected effects on agriculture and
biodiversity, of the dangers of irreversible "genetic pollution", warnings
of genetic discrimination and the return of eugenics, as genetic screening
and prenatal diagnosis became widely available, were marginalized. So too
were condemnations of the immorality of the "patents on life" - transgenic
animals, plants and seeds, taken freely by geneticists of developed countries
from the Third World, as well as human genes and human cell lines from
indigenous peoples.

By and large, the public were lulled into a false sense of security,
in the belief that the best scientists and the new breed of "bioethicists"
in the country were busy considering the risks associated with the new
biotechnology and the ethical issues raised. Simultaneously, glossy information
pamphlets and reports, which aimed at promoting "public understanding"
of genetic "modification" were widely distributed by the biotech industries
and their friends, and endorsed by government scientists. "Genetic modification",
we are told, is simply the latest in a "seamless" continuum of biotechnologies
practised by human beings since the dawn of civilization, from bread and
wine-making, to selective breeding. The significant advantage of genetic
modification is that it is much more "precise", as genes can be individually
isolated and transferred as desired.

Thus, the possible benefits promised to humankind are limitless.
There is something to satisfy everyone. For those morally concerned about
inequality and human suffering, it promises to feed the hungry with genetically
modified crops able to resist pests and diseases and to increase yields.
For those who despair of the present global environmental deterioration,
it promises to modify strains of bacteria and higher plants that can degrade
toxic wastes or mop up heavy metals(contaminants). For those hankering
after sustainable agriculture, it promises to develop Greener, more environmentally
friendly transgenic crops that will reduce the use of pesticides, herbicides
and fertilizers.

That is not all. It is in the realm of human genetics that the
real revolution will be wrought. Plans to uncover the entire genetic blueprint
of the human being would, we are told, eventually enable geneticists to
diagnose, in advance, all the diseases that an individual will suffer in
his or her lifetime, even before the individual is born, or even as the
egg is fertilized in vitro. A whole gamut of specific drugs tailored
to individual genetic needs can be designed to cure all diseases. The possibility
of immortality is dangling from the horizons as the "longevity gene" is
isolated.

There are problems, of course, as there would be in any technology.
The ethical issues have to be decided by the public. (By implication, the
science is separate and not open to question.) The risks will be minimized.
(Again, by implication, the risks have nothing to do with the science.)
After all, nothing in life is without risk. Crossing roads is a risk. The
new biotechnology (i.e. genetic engineering biotechnology) is under very
strict government regulation, and the government's scientists and other
experts will see to it that neither the consumer nor the environment will
be unduly harmed.

Then came the relaxation of regulation on genetically modified
products, on grounds that over-regulation is compromising the "competitiveness"
of the industry, and that hundreds of field trials have demonstrated the
new biotechnology to be safe. And, in any case, there is no essential difference
between transgenic plants produced by the new biotechnology and those produced
by conventional breeding methods. (One prominent spokesperson for the industry
even went as far as to refer to the varieties produced by conventional
breeding methods, retrospectively, as "transgenics".(1) This was
followed, a year later, by the avalanche of products approved, or seeking,
approval marketing, for which neither segregation from non-genetically
engineered produce nor labelling is required. One is left to wonder why,
if the products are as safe and wonderful as claimed, they could not be
segregated, as organic produce has been for years, so that consumers are
given the choice of buying what they want.

A few days later, as though acting on cue, the Association of
British Insurers announced that, in future, people applying for life policies
will have to divulge the results of any genetic tests they have taken.
This is seen, by many, as a definite move towards open genetic discrimination.
A few days later, a scientist of the Roslin Institute near Edinburgh announced
that they had successfully "cloned" a sheep from a cell taken from the
mammary gland of an adult animal. "Dolly", the cloned lamb, is now seven
months old. Of course it took nearly 300 trials to get one success, but
no mention is made of the vast majority of the embryos that failed. Is
that ethical? If it can be done on sheep, does it mean it can be done for
human beings? Are we nearer to cloning human beings? The popular media
went wild with heroic enthusiasm at one extreme to the horror of Frankenstein
at the other. Why is this work only coming to public attention now, when
the research has actually been going on for at least 10 years?(2)

The public are totally unprepared. They are being plunged headlong,
against their will, into the brave new genetically engineered world, in
which giant, faceless multinational corporations will control every aspect
of their lives, from the food they can eat, to the baby they can conceive
and give birth to.
(continues after box)_________________________________________________________________________________

I should, right away, dispel the myth that genetic engineering
is just like conventional breeding techniques. It is not. Genetic engineering
bypasses conventional breeding by using the artificially constructed vectors
to multiply copies of genes, and in many cases, to carry and smuggle genes
into cells. Once inside cells, these vectors slot themselves into the host
genome. In this way, transgenic organisms are made carrying the desired
transgenes. The insertion of foreign genes into the host genome has long
been known to have many harmful and fatal effects including cancer; and
this is born out by the low success rate of creating desired transgenic
organisms. Typically, a large number of eggs or embryos have to be injected
or infected with the vector to obtain a few organisms that successfully
express the transgene.

The most common vectors used in genetic engineering biotechnology
are a chimaeric recombination of natural genetic parasites from different
sources, including viruses causing cancers and other diseases in animals
and plants, with their pathogenic functions 'crippled', and tagged with
one or more antibiotic resistance 'marker' genes, so that cells transformed
with the vector can be selected. For example, the vector most widely used
in plant genetic engineering is derived from a tumour-inducing plasmid
carried by the soil bacterium Agrobacterium tumefaciens. In animals, vectors
are constructed from retroviruses causing cancers and other diseases. A
vector currently used in fish has a framework from the Moloney marine leukaemic
virus, which causes leukaemia in mice, but can infect all mammalian cells.
It has bits from the Rous Sarcoma virus, causing sarcomas in chickens,
and from the vesicular stomatitis virus, causing oral lesions in cattle,
horses, pigs and humans. Such mosaic vectors are particularly hazardous.
Unlike natural parasitic genetic elements which have various degrees of
host specificity, vectors used in genetic engineering, partly by design,
and partly on account of their mosaic character, have the ability to overcome
species barriers, and to infect a wide range of species. Another obstacle
to genetic engineering is that all organisms and cells have natural defence
mechanisms that enable them to destroy or inactivate foreign genes, and
transgene instability is a big problem for the industry. Vectors are now
increasingly constructed to overcome those mechanisms that maintain the
integrity of species. The result is that the artificially constructed vectors
are especially good at carrying out horizontal gene transfer.

1. Genetic engineering recombines genetic material in the laboratory
between species that do not interbreed in nature.

2. While conventional breeding methods shuffle different forms (alletes)
of the same genes, genetic engineering enables completely new (exotic)
genes to be introduced with unpredictable effects on the physiology and
biochemistry of the resultant transgenic organism.

3. Gene multiplications and a high proportion of gene transfers are
mediated by vectors which have the following undesirable characteristics:

a. many are derived from disease-causing viruses, plasmids and mobile
genetic elements - parasitic DNA that have the ability to invade cells
and insert themselves into the cell's genome causing genetic damages.

b. they are designed to break down species barriers so that they can
shuttle genes between a wide range of species. Their wide host range means
that they can infect many animals and plants, and in the process pick up
genes from viruses of all these species to create new pathogens.

c. they routinely carry genes for antibiotic resistance, which is already
a big health problem.

d. they are increasingly constructed to overcome the recipient species'
defence mechanisms that break down or inactivate foreign DNA.

(continued)Isn't it a bit late in the day to tell us that?, you ask. Yes and no.
Yes, because I, who should, perhaps, have known better, was caught unprepared
like the rest. And no, because there have been so many people warning us
of that eventuality, who have campaigned tirelessly on our behalf, some
of them going back to the earliest days of genetic engineering in the 1970s
- although we have paid them little heed. No, it is not too late, if only
because that is precisely what we tend to believe, and are encouraged to
believe. A certain climate is created - that of being rapidly overtaken
by events - reinforcing the feeling that the tidal wave of progress brought
on by the new biotechnology is impossible to stem, so that we may be paralysed
into accepting the inevitable, No, because we shall not give up, for the
consequence of giving up is the brave new world, and soon after that, there
may be no world at all. The gene genie is fast getting out of control.
The practitioners of genetic engineering biotechnology, the regulators
and the critics alike, have all underestimated the risks involved,
which are inherent to genetic engineering biotechnology, particularly
as misguided by an outmoded and erroneous world-view that comes from bad
science. The dreams may already be turning into nightmares.

That is why people like myself are calling for an immediate moratorium
on further releases and marketing of genetically engineered products, and
for an independent public enquiry to be set up to look into the risks and
hazards involved, taking into account the most comprehensive, scientific
knowledge in addition to the social, moral implications. This would be
most timely, as public opposition to genetic engineering biotechnology
has been gaining momentum throughout Europe and the USA.

In Austria, a record 1.2 million citizens, representing 20 per
cent of the electorate, have signed a people's petition to ban genetically
engineered foods, as well as deliberate releases of genetically modified
organisms and patenting of life. Genetically modified foods were also rejected
earlier by a lay people consultation in Norway, and by 95 per cent of consumers
in Germany, as revealed by a recent survey. The European Parliament has
voted by an overwhelming 407 to 2 majority to censure the Commission's
authorization, in December 1996, for imports of Ciba-Geigy's transgenic
maize into Europe, and is calling for imports to be suspended while the
authorization is re-examined. The European Commission has decided that
in the future genetically engineered seeds will be labelled, and is also
considering proposals for retroactive labelling. Commissioner Emma Bonino
is to set up a new scientific committee to deal with genetically engineered
foods, members of which are to be completely independent of the food industry.
Meanwhile, Franz Fischler, the European Commissioner on Agriculture, supports
a complete segregation and labelling of production lines of genetically
modified and non-genetically modified foods.

In June this year, President Clinton imposed a five-year ban on
human cloning in the USA, while the UK House of Commons Science and Technology
Committee (STC) wants British law to be amended to ensure that human cloning
is illegal. The STC, President Chirac of France and German Research Minister
Juergen Ruettgers are also calling for an international ban on human cloning.

Like other excellent critics before me,(3) I do not think there
is a grand conspiracy afoot, though there are many forces converging to
a single terrible end. Susan George comments, "They don't have to conspire
if they have the same world-view, aspire to similar goals and take concerted
steps to attain them."(4)

I am one of those scientists who have long been highly critical
of the reductionist mainstream scientific world-view, and have begun to
work towards a radically different approach for understanding nature.(5)
But I was unable, for a long time, to see how much science really matters
in the affairs of the real world, not just in terms of practical inventions
like genetic engineering, but in how that scientific world-view takes hold
of people's unconscious, so that they take action, involuntarily, unquestioningly,
to shape the world to the detriment of human beings. I was so little aware
of how that science is used, without conscious intent, to intimidate and
control, to obfuscate, to exploit and oppress; how that dominant world-view
generates a selective blindness to make scientists themselves ignore or
misread scientific evidence.

The point, however, is not that science is bad - but that
there can be bad science that ill-serves humanity. Science can often
be wrong. The history of science can just as well be written in terms of
the mistakes made than as the series of triumphs it is usually made out
to be. Science is nothing more, and nothing less, than a system of concepts
for understanding nature and for obtaining reliable knowledge that enables
us to live sustainably with nature. In that sense, one can ill-afford to
give up science, for it is through our proper understanding and knowledge
of nature that we can live a satisfying life, that we can ultimately distinguish
the good science, which serves humanity, from the bad science that does
not. In this view, science is imbued with moral values from the start,
and cannot be disentangled from them. Therefore it is bad science that
purports to be "neutral" and divorced from moral values, as much as it
is bad science that ignores scientific evidence.

It is clear that I part company with perhaps a majority of my
scientist colleagues in the mainstream, who believe that science can never
be wrong, although it can be misused. Or else they carefully distinguish
science, as neutral and value-free, from its application, technology, which
can do harm or good.(6) This distinction between science and technology
is spurious, especially in the case of an experimental science like genetics,
and almost all of biology, where the techniques determine what sorts of
question are asked and hence the range of answers that are important, significant
and relevant to the science. Where would molecular genetics be without
the tools that enable practitioners to recombine and manipulate our destiny?
It is an irresistibly heroic view, except that it is totally wrong and
misguided.

It is also meaningless, therefore, to set up Ethical Committees
which do not question the basic scientific assumptions behind the practice
of genetic engineering biotechnology. Their brief is severely limited,
often verging on the trivial and banal - such as whether a pork gene transferred
to food plants might be counter to certain religious beliefs - in comparison
with the much more fundamental questions of eugenics, genetic discrimination
and, indeed, whether gene transfers should be carried out at all. They
can do nothing more than make the unacceptable acceptable to the public.

The debate on genetic engineering biotechnology is dogged by the
artificial separation imposed between "pure" science and the issues it
gives rise to. "Ethics" is deemed to be socially determined, and therefore
negotiable, while the science is seen to be beyond reproach, as it is the
"laws" of nature. The same goes for the distinction between "technology"
- the application of science - from the science. Risk assessments are to
do with the technology, leaving the science equally untouched. The technology
can be bad for your health, but not the science. In this article, I shall
show why science cannot be separated from moral values nor from the technology
that shapes our society. In other words, bad science is unquestionably
bad for one's health and well-being, and should be avoided at all costs.
Science is, above all, fallible and negotiable, because we have the choice,
to do or not to do. It should be negotiated for the public good. That is
the only ethical position one can take with regard to science. Otherwise,
we are in danger of turning science into the most fundamentalist of religions,
that, working hand in hand with corporate interests, will surely usher
in the brave new world.

Bad science and big businessWhat makes genetic engineering biotechnology dangerous, in the first
instance, is that it is an unprecedented, close alliance between two great
powers that can make or break the world: science and commerce. Practically
all established molecular geneticists have some direct or indirect connection
with industry, which will set limits on what the scientists can and will
do research on, not to mention the possibility of compromising their integrity
as independent scientists.(7)

The worst aspect of the alliance is that it is between the most
reductionist science and multinational monopolistic industry at its most
aggressive and exploitative. If the truth be told, it is bad science working
together with big business for quick profit, aided and abetted by our governments
for the banal reason that governments wish to be re-elected to remain in
'power'.(8)

Speaking as a scientist who loves and believes in science, I have
to say it is bad science that has let the world down and caused the major
problems we now face, not the least among which is by promoting and legitimizing
a particular world-view. It is a reductionist, manipulative and exploitative
world-view. Reductionist because it sees the world as bits and pieces,
and denies there are organic wholes such as organisms, ecosystems, societies
and community of nations. Manipulative and exploitative because it regards
nature and fellow human beings as objects to be manipulated and exploited
for gain; life being a Darwinian struggle for survival of the fittest.

It is by no means coincidental that the economic theory currently
dominating the world is rooted in the same laissez-faire capitalist
ideology that gave rise to Darwinism. It acknowledges no values other than
self-interest, competitiveness and the accumulation of wealth, at which
the developed nations have been very successful. Already, according to
the 1992 United Nations Development Programme Report, the richest fifth
of the world's population has amassed 82.7 per cent of the wealth, while
the poorest fifth gets a piddling 1.4 per cent. Or, put in another way,
there are now 477 billionaires in the world whose combined assets are roughly
equal to the combined annual incomes of the poorer half of humanity - 2.8
billion people.(9) Do we need to be more "competitive" still to take from
the poorest their remaining pittance? That is, in fact, what we are doing.

The governmental representatives of the superpowers are pushing
for a "globalized economy" under trade agreements which erase all economic
borders. "Together, the processes of deregulation and globalization are
undermining the power of both unions and governments and placing the power
of global corporations and finance beyond the reach of public accountability."(10)
The largest corporations continue to consolidate that power through mergers,
acquisitions and strategic alliances. Multinational corporations now comprise
51 of the world's 100 largest economies: only 49 of the latter are nations.
By 1993, agricultural biotechnology was being controlled by just (11) giant
corporations, and these are now undergoing further mergers. The OECD (Organization
for Economic Co-operation and Development) member countries are at this
moment working in secret in Paris on the Multilateral Agreements on Investment
(MAI), which is written by and for corporations to prohibit any government
from establishing performance or accountability standards for foreign investors.
European Commissioner, Sir Leon Brittan, is negotiating in the World Trade
Organization, on behalf of the European Community, to ensure that no barriers
of any kind should remain in the South to dampen exploitation by the North,
and at the same time, to protect the deeply unethical "patents of life"
through Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreements.(11)
So, in addition to gaining complete control of the food supply of the South
through exclusive rights to genetically engineered seeds, the big food
giants of the North can asset-strip the South's genetic and intellectual
resources with impunity, up to and including genes and cell lines of indigenous
peoples.

There is no question that the mindset that leads to and validates
genetic engineering is genetic determinism - the idea that organisms
are determined by their genetic makeup, or the totality of their genes.
Genetic determinism derives from the marriage of Darwinism and Mendelian
genetics. For those imbued with the mindset of genetic determinism, the
major problems of the world can be solved simply by identifying and manipulating
genes, for genes determine the characters of organisms; so by identifying
a gene we can predict a desirable or undesirable trait, by changing a gene
we change the trait, by transferring a gene we transfer the corresponding
trait.

The Human Genome Project was inspired by the same genetic determinism
that locates the "blueprint" for constructing the human being in the human
genome. It may have been a brilliant political move to capture research
funds and, at the same time, to revive a flagging pharmaceutical industry,
but its scientific content was suspect from the first.

Genetic engineering technology promises to work for the benefit
of mankind; the reality is something else.

It displaces and marginalizes all alternative approaches that address the
social and environmental causes of malnutrition and ill-health, such as
poverty and unemployment, and the need for for a sustainable agriculture
that could regenerate the environment, guarantee long-term food security
and, at the same time, conserve indigenous biodiversity.

Its purpose is to accommodate problems that reductionist science and industry
have created in the first place - widespread environmental deterioration
from the intensive, high-input agriculture of the Green Revolution, and
accumulation of toxic wastes from chemical industries. What's offer now
is more of the same, except with new problems attached.

It leads to discriminatory and other unethical practices that are against
the moral values of societies and community of nations.

Worst of all, it is pushing a technology that is untried, and, according
to existing knowledge, is inherently hazardous to health and biodiversity.

Let me enlarge on that last point here, as I believe it has been underestimated,
if not entirely overlooked by the practitioners, regulators and many critics
of genetic engineering biotechnology alike, on account of a certain blindness
to concrete scientific evidence, largely as a result of their conscious
or unconscious commitment to an old, discredited paradigm. The most immediate
hazards are likely to be in public health - which has already reached a
global crisis, attesting to the failure of decades of reductionist medical
practices - although the hazards to biodiversity will not be far behind.

Genetic engineering biotechnology is inherently hazardousAccording to the 1996 World Health Organization Report, at least 30
new diseases, including AIDS, Ebola and Hepatitis C, have emerged over
the past 20 years, while old infectious diseases such as tuberculosis,
cholera, malaria and diphtheria are coming back worldwide. Almost every
month now in the UK we hear reports on fresh outbreaks: Streptococcus,
meningitis, E. coli. Practically all the pathogens are resistant
to antibiotics, many to multiple antibiotics. Two strains of E. coli
isolated in a transplant ward outside Cambridge in 1993 were found to be
resistant to 21 out of 22 common antibiotics.(12) A strain of Staphylococcus
isolated in Australia in 1990 was found to be resistant to 31 different
drugs.(13) Infections with these and other strains will very soon become
totally invulnerable to treatment. In fact, scientists in Japan have already
isolated a strain of Staphylococcus aureus that is resistant even
to the last resort antibiotic, vancomycin.(14)

Geneticists have now linked the emergence of pathogenic bacteria
and of antibiotic resistance to horizontal gene transfer - the transfer
of genes to unrelated species, by infection through viruses, though pieces
of genetic material, DNA, taken up into cells from the environment, or
by unusual mating taking place between unrelated species. For example,
horizontal gene transfer and subsequent genetic recombination have generated
the bacterial strains responsible for the cholera outbreak in India in
1992,(15) and the Streptococcus epidemic in Tayside in 1993.(16) The E.
coli 157 strain involved in the recent outbreaks in Scotland is believed
to have originated from horizontal gene transfer from the pathogen, Shigella.(17)
Many unrelated bacterial pathogens, causing diseases from bubonic plague
to tree blight, are found to share an entire set of genes for invading
cells, which have almost certainly spread by horizontal gene transfer.(18)
Similarly, genes for antibiotic resistance have spread horizontally and
recombined with one another to generate multiple antibiotic resistance
throughout the bacterial populations.(19) Antibiotic resistance genes spread
readily by contact between human beings, and from bacteria inhabiting the
gut of farm animals to those in human beings.(20) Multiple antibiotic resistant
strains of pathogens have been endemic in many hospitals for years.(21)

What is the connection between horizontal gene transfer and genetic
engineering? Genetic engineering is a technology designed specifically
to transfer genes horizontally between species that do not interbreed.
It is designed to break down species barriers and, increasingly, to overcome
the species' defence mechanisms which normally degrade or inactivate foreign
genes.(22) For the purpose of manipulating, replicating and transferring
genes, genetic engineers make use of recombined versions of precisely those
genetic parasites causing diseases including cancers, and others that carry
and spread virulence genes and antibiotic resistance genes. Thus the technology
will contribute to an increase in the frequency of horizontal gene transfer
of those genes that are responsible for virulence and antibiotic resistance,
and allow them to recombine to generate new pathogens.

What is even more disturbing is that geneticists have now found
evidence that the presence of antibiotics typically increases the frequency
of horizontal gene transfer 100-fold or more, possibly because the antibiotic
acts like a sex hormone for the bacteria, enhancing mating and exchange
of genes between unrelated species.(23) Thus, antibiotic resistance and
multiple antibiotic resistance cannot be overcome simply by making new
antibiotics, for antibiotics create the very conditions to facilitate
the spread of resistance. The continuing profligate use of antibiotics
in intensive farming and in medicine, in combination with the commercial-scale
practice of genetic engineering, may already be major contributing factors
for the accelerated spread of multiple antibiotic resistance among new
and old pathogens that the WHO 1996 Report has identified within the past
10 years. For example, there has been a dramatic rise both in terms of
incidence and severity of cases of infections by Salmonella,(24)
with some countries in Europe witnessing a staggering 20-fold increase
in incidence since 1980.

That is not all. One by one, those assumptions on which geneticists
and regulatory committees have based their assessment of genetically engineered
products to be "safe" have fallen by the wayside, especially in the light
of evidence emerging within the past three to four years. However, there
is still little indication that the new findings are being taken on board.
On the contrary, regulatory bodies have succumbed to pressure from the
industry to relax already inadequate regulations. Let me list a few more
of the relevant findings in genetics.

We have been told that horizontal gene transfer is confined to
bacteria. That is not so. It is now known to involve practically all species
of animal, plant and fungus. It is possible for any gene in any species
to spread to any other species, especially if the gene is carried on genetically
engineered gene-transfer vectors. Transgenes and antibiotic resistance
marker genes from transgenic plants have been shown to end up in soil fungi
and bacteria.(25) The microbial populations in the environment serve as
the gene-transfer highway and reservoir, supporting the replication of
the the genes and allowing them to spread and recombine with other genes
to generate new pathogens.(26)

We have been assured that "crippled" laboratory strains of bacteria
and viruses do not survive when released into the environment. That is
not true. There is now abundant evidence that they can either survive quite
well and multiply, or they can go dormant and reappear after having acquired
genes from other bacteria to enable them to multiply.(27) Bacteria co-operate
much more than they compete. They share their most valuable assets for
survival.

We have been told that DNA is easily broken down in the environment.
Not so. DNA can remain in the environment where they can be picked up by
bacteria and incorporated into their genome.(28) DNA is, in fact, one of
the toughest molecules. Biochemists jumped with joy when they didn't have
to work with proteins anymore, which lose their activity very readily.
By contrast, DNA survives rigorous boiling, so when they approve processed
food on grounds that there can be no DNA left, ask exactly how the processing
is done, and whether the appropriate tests for the presence of DNA have
been carried out.

The survival of "crippled" laboratory strains of bacteria and
viruses and the persistence of DNA in the environment are of particular
relevance to the so-called "contained" users producing transgenic pharmaceuticals,
enzymes and food additives. "Tolerated" releases and transgenic wastes
from such users may already have released large amounts of transgenic bacteria
and viruses as well as DNA into the environment since the early 1980s when
commercial genetic engineering biotechnology began.

We are told that DNA is easily digested by enzymes in our gut.
Not true. The DNA of a virus has been found to survive passage through
the gut of mice. Furthermore, the DNA readily finds its way into the bloodstream,
and into all kinds of cell in the body.(29) Once inside the cell, the DNA
can insert itself into the cell's genome, and create all manner of genetic
disturbances, including cancer.(30)

There are yet further findings pointing to the potential hazards
of generating new disease-causing viruses by recombination between artificial
viral vectors and vaccines and other viruses in the environment. The viruses
generated in this way will have increased host ranges, infecting and causing
diseases in more than one species, and hence very difficult to eradicate.
We are already seeing such viruses emerging.

Monkeypox, a previously rare and potentially fatal virus caught from rodents,
is spreading through central Zaire.(31) Between 1981-1986 only 37 cases
were known, but there have been at least 163 cases in one eastern province
of Zaire alone since July 1995. For the first time, humans are transmitting
the disease directly from one to the other.

An outbreak of hantavirus infection hit southern Argentina in December
1996, the first time the virus was transmitted from person to person.(32)
Previously, the virus was spread by breathing in the aerosols from rodent
excrement or urine.

New highly virulent strains of infectious bursal disease virus (IBDV) spread
rapidly throughout most of the poultry industry in the Northern Hemisphere,
and are now infecting Antarctic penguins, and are suspected of causing
mass mortality.(33)

New strains of distemper and rabies viruses are spilling out from towns
and villages to plague some of the world's rarest wild animals in Africa:(34)
lions, panthers, wild dogs, giant otter.

None of the plethora of new findings has been taken on board by the regulatory
bodies. On the contrary, safety regulations have been relaxed. The public
is being used, against its will, as guinea pigs for genetically engineered
products, while new viruses and bacterial pathogens may be created by the
technology every passing day.

The present situation is reminiscent of the development of nuclear
energy which gave us the atom bomb, and the nuclear power stations that
we now know to be hazardous to health and also to be environmentally unsustainable
on account of the long-lasting radioactive wastes they produce. Joseph
Rotblat, the British physicist who won the 1995 Nobel Prize after years
of battling against nuclear weapons, has this to say. "My worry is that
other advances in science may result in other means of mass destruction,
maybe more readily available even than nuclear weapons. Genetic engineering
is quite a possible area, because of these dreadful developments that are
taking place there."(35)

The large-scale release of transgenic organisms is much worse
than nuclear weapons or radioactive nuclear wastes, as genes can replicate
indefinitely, spread and recombine. There may yet be time enough to stop
the industry's dreams turning into nightmares if we act now, before the
critical genetic "melt-down" is reached.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Dr Mae-Wan Ho heads the Bio-Electrodynamics laboratory at the
Open University in Milton Keynes in the UK. Dr Ho is the author of The
Rainbow and the Worm on the physics of organisms and is co-author of
the Independent Report on Biosafety, prepared by the Third World
Network for the biosafety negotiations taking place under the Convention
on Biological Diversity.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Notes and References

The first time I heard the word "transgenic" being used on cultivars resulting
from conventional breeding methods was from Henry Miller, a prominent advocate
for genetic engineering biotechnology, in a public debate with myself,
organized by the Oxford Centre for Environment, Ethics and Society, in
Oxford University on February 20, 1997.

"Scientists scorn sci-fi fears over sheep clone" The Guardian, February
24, 1997, p.7. Lewis Wolpert, development biologist at University College
London was reported as saying, "It's a pretty risky technique with lots
of abnormalities." Also report and interview in the Eight O'Clock News,
BBC Radio 4, February 24, 1997.

As for instance, Spallone, 1992.

George, 1988, p.5.

My colleague Peter Saunders and I began working on an alternative approach
to neo-Darwinian evolutionary theory in the 1970s. Major collections of
multi-author essays appeared in Ho and Saunders, 1984: Pollard, 1981: Ho
and Fox, 1988.

Lewis Wolpert, who currently heads the Committee for the public Understanding
of Science, argues strenuously for this 'fundamentalist' view of science.
See Wolpert, 1996.

See Hubbard and Wald, 1993.

This was pointed out to me by Martin Khor, during a course on Globalization
and Economics that he gave at Schumacher College, February 3-10, 1997.

See Korten, 1997.

Korten, 1997, p.2.

See Perlas, 1994; also WTO: New setback for the South, Third World Resurgence
issue 77/78, 1997, which contains many articles reporting on the WTO meeting
held in December 1996 in Singapore.

See World Health Report, 1996; also Garret, 1995, chapter 13, for an excellent
account of the history of antibiotic resistance in pathogens.

See Ho and Tappeser, 1997.

See Davies, 1994.

WHO Fact Sheet No. 139, January 1997.

Hoffman et al., 1994; Schluter et al., 1995.

See Ho, 1996a.

Jager and Tappeser, 1996, have extensively reviewed the literature on the
survival of bacteria and DNA released into different environments.

See Lorenz and Wackernagel, 1994.

See Schubert et al., 1994; also New Scientist January 24, p.24, featured
a short report on recent findings of the group that were presented at the
International Congress on Cell Biology in San Francisco, December 1996.